had been taken and garrisoned by the English. The commander and his
followers are accused of such excesses of lust and cruelty "as would,"
says Beaugé, "have made to tremble the most savage moor in Africa." A
band of Frenchmen, with the laird of Fairnihirst, and [Sidenote: 1549]
his borderers, assaulted this fortress. The English archers showered
their arrows down the steep ascent, leading to the castle, and from
the outer wall by which it was surrounded. A vigorous escalade,
however, gained the base court, and the sharp fire of the French
arquebusiers drove the bowmen into the square keep, or dungeon, of the
fortress. Here the English defended themselves, till a breach in the
wall was made by mining. Through this hole the commandant creeped
forth; and, surrendering himself to De la Mothe-rouge, implored
protection from the vengeance of the borderers. But a Scottish
marc-hman, eyeing in the captive the ravisher of his wife, approached
him ere the French officer could guess his intention, and, at one
blow, carried his head four paces from the trunk. Above a hundred
Scots rushed to wash their hands in the blood of their oppressor,
bandied about the severed head, and expressed their joy in such
shouts, as if they had stormed the city of London. The prisoners, who
fell into their merciless hands, were put to death, after their eyes
had been torn out; the victors contending who should display the
greatest address in severing their legs and arms, before inflicting a
mortal wound. When their own prisoners were slain, the Scottish, with
an unextinguishable thirst for blood, purchased those of the French;
parting willingly with their very arms, in exchange for an English
captive. "I myself," says Beaugé, with military sang-froid, "I myself
sold them a prisoner for a small horse. They laid him down upon the
ground, galloped over him with their lances in rest, and wounded him
as they passed. When slain, they cut his body in pieces, and bore the
mangled gobbets, in triumph, on the points of their spears. I cannot